


Five Further Adventures of Bernadette, Queen of the Desert

by Rinkafic



Series: Misc Fanfic [2]
Category: Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 20:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for Kink Bingo fills: “Tattoos/tattooing,” “Shaving/Depilation,” “Foot/Shoe Fetish,” “Suspension,” and “Uniform/Military Kink”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Further Adventures of Bernadette, Queen of the Desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [camshaft22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camshaft22/gifts).



**What I Always Wanted**  
Bernadette sat at a table in the second row, her chin on one fist as she watched the sister act auditioning on the stage. She loved her job at Lasseter's, acting as Marion’s assistant manager. Marion had given her full charge of the next show, and she was making sure to get the best acts possible lined up.

The girls spun and bent, flipping their skirts up to reveal scantily clad bottoms. Nicely shaped bottoms, to be certain. The girl on the left had a tattoo that Bernadette had not seen until the skirt went up. It looked like a butterfly, or perhaps she had seen a glimpse of fairy wing before the girl stood up and turned to wiggle her bosom. But Bernadette could not get that glimpse of ink out of her mind. She had always loved tattoos on men. In her day, every seaman worth his salt had at least one, if not more. And Bernadette had seen more than her share of decorated skin. In the past few years, more and more girls had started wearing them.

She watched the girls do their big finish, debating about asking them to do the tush flash again, but decided that might be tacky. As much as she had liked the tattoo, the rest of the act had been lackluster, she didn’t really think they would do for Lasseter’s main stage. Maybe as part of a cabaret night in one of the lounges, but not for a headliner show. “Thank you ladies, I have your card, we’ll be in touch if a slot opens up.”

The next act handed their music to the piano player and took the stage, there was some confusion as they found their places. Bob came up behind her, hugged her and kissed the top of her head before sliding into the seat beside her. “You’re lost in thought love. What are you thinking about?”

“I’ve always wanted a tattoo.”

“What’s stopped you?”

She sighed. “A lady would never have one, and I have always strived to be a lady.”

He grasped her hand and kissed her fingers. “You are that.”

“And I always worried about how it would look as I got older. Wrinkly skin and gravity are not always kind to ink. But...”

“But?” he asked as she trailed off and did not complete the thought.

She smiled. “Now I’m old and wrinkly, so why not?”

“Why not indeed?” he agreed.

Once the thought was in her head, she couldn’t shake it, it became an obsession. And so, not three days later, she found herself in a tattoo parlour. Bernadette was being decorated with the peacock she had chosen from the book, one which suited the image she had in her head of an art deco piece she had once seen and had always thought would make a lovely tattoo, should she ever be brave enough to get one.

Bob sat beside her and held her hand as the tattoo artist worked over her thigh. The outline was in and as she looked down at it, she felt a rush of excitement. She was doing it! She was getting the tattoo she had always dreamed of. And her partner was enthusiastic about it too, he had proclaimed the peacock the perfect representation of Bernadette.

 

 **Straight Razor**  
When Bob had told Bernadette that he planned to stay on at Lasseter’s, she had been touched by the sacrifice he was making to be near her. After all, they had only had a short time together on the last leg of her journey across the country.

She wasn’t entirely sure what Bob wanted out of the budding relationship they seemed to have going. Bernadette wasn’t the type for raucous sex the way his soon-to-be ex-wife had been. She hadn’t, as far as she recalled, done anything to entice Bob or lead him on. The one night they had spent alone together on the trip, they had talked until dawn, just talked.

Eventually, one night, their evening cuddle in front of the television had turned into hesitant kisses. Slowly, over time, they grew more comfortable together and they found a balance for their needs and desires, what each wanted out of the relationship. Age had given them patience and understanding that had been lacking in their youth. It was enough to have someone there in the night to reach out and caress lightly, a warm body in the dark to ward off the loneliness.

One morning, Bernadette forgot to close the door all the way when she went in. She was standing at the sink, shaving. It was one of the remnants from her old life, one that she hated, the need to shave. The hormones she took kept away the worst of her beard and mustache, and she frequently waxed, but she had found the best way to control it was to shave each morning.

She was lathering her face when movement in the mirror caught her eye. Bob was standing by the door, an odd look on his face. She sighed and turned towards him. “Do I disgust you?”

“On the contrary, I find it fascinating, may I watch?”

Bernadette was coming to understand that Bob was not at all what she expected, ever. “I suppose so. Come in.”

He leaned against the tiles beside the sink, his hands pressed behind his back as Bernadette returned to the lather. Being an old fashioned girl, she preferred a straight razor. Since she had an audience, and since Bernadette was an inveterate performer, she stropped the razor dramatically before raising it to her cheek as she pulled it tight.

The razor made a light scraping sound as it moved across her skin, over and over. She lifted her chin and did her neck, shaving the most troublesome cache of stubborn hairs that cropped up each night. Bob watched each stroke, followed the smooth motion of the blade that she held tightly in her fingers, following it down to the sink as she shook off the smutz.

“You certainly know how to handle that.”

She smiled at him as she began to clean off the excess lather with a damp washcloth. “Years of practice, love.”

“Would you... that is...” he cleared his throat. “Could you do me? Shave me?”

Bernadette smiled and nodded. “It would be my pleasure. Come and have a seat.” She gestured to the commode and he moved to sit down.

She straddled his legs, and began to lather his face, making it as sensual as she could by letting her fingers linger and drag across his cheeks. She sharpened the razor again and raised it to his face. It was a little different, shaving someone else, but she was soon in the rhythm and had pattern down for holding his skin taught and shaving it. The scrape of the blade cutting the whiskers was louder now than it had been when she had shaved her own face. Bob’s beard was thicker, after all.  
He tilted his head back, offering his throat with absolute trust. She loved him a little more in that moment, rarely had anyone shown that much faith in her.

When she finished shaving him, she gently washed his face and then smoothed some lotion that she used over his cheeks. Then she leaned down and kissed him tenderly. “Are we ready to start the day?”

“I could start every day like this,” Bob replied, grabbing her hands and squeezing them. “Every day. Thank you, Bernadette.”

 

 **Pretty Feet**  
As a former person of the male persuasion, possessing of the feet of a former male, shoes had once been the bane of Bernadette’s life. When she had first started dressing as a woman and performing with Les Girls, she had despaired of ever finding pretty shoes to fit her feet. And thus had begun her love-hate relationship with footwear.

She had searched the department stores and the shoe stores for the larger women’s sizes. Specialty catalogs had been a find that had overjoyed the young female impersonator. She learned the power of mail order. The mailman became a friend- as well as the star of quite a few of her fantasies - after all, he brought her shoes on a regular basis. She had one particular one where he would come into her flat and tear the wrappings off the box in his hands, advancing on her until she fell back against the sofa. He would set the box on the floor and take her foot in his hand, stripping off her fuzzy bunny slipper, then doing the same with the other. Then he would open the box, flinging the lid aside. He would raise one shoe to his face, sniffing at the leather and sighing in contentment. He caressed the shoe with his hand and then reached for her foot, slipping it on and caressing her ankle as he gently lowered it to the floor. He would then repeat it all again with the other shoe. In her fantasy, they were always Italian leather shoes and they were always very, very expensive, because it was a fantasy and she could never afford that in real life.

Custom shoes were very, very expensive, and Bernadette could only afford to spend so much on such a small part of each costume. She learned to accessorize with clip ons and overlays so that she could reuse shoes for different performance pieces. Once in awhile, she would strike gold and find something affordable in the shoe department at the local department store, but those occasions were few and far between. Like most performers in her field, she learned to make do and be crafty as well as design and sew.

Things didn’t change much over the years, she still relied on the catalogs and mail order for her wardrobe needs. Until the internet came and opened a whole new world, or at least brought the rest of the world over to her corner of it via FedEx. But overseas shipping was expensive, so she couldn’t add too much to her collection. Not that she had a lot of room in her room at Lasseter’s Hotel and Casino to keep her extensive collection of shoes.

She opened her mail one day to find a flyer from Tick, now happily working back in Sydney. There was to be an expo in the city, catering to cross-dressers and drag queens. A shame Bernadette was across the country, or she would have been there, dropping a bankroll. Perhaps it was better this way. Tick had attached a note, saying if there was anything in particular Bernadette needed, to write back with sizes and colors.

Folding the flyer, she tapped a finger on her cheek. She did have this odd urge for cheetah-print peep-toe pumps. Her feet would look pretty in them, with her toenails done up just so. She wondered if Tick could find them in size ten?

 

 **Recapturing the Past**  
A long time ago, when she had been young and ft and not possessing of daily aches and pains in her bones, Bernadette had done wild and crazy things on the stage as part of some of her acts when she had been a member of Les Girls. She had juggled flames, she had jumped through hoops, she had even walked a tightrope. Sometimes she wondered if being a female impersonator in the old days required one to be part circus performer as well.

But by far, her favorite gimmick had always been wire work. Bernadette had loved being in harness and feeling herself lifted up over the stage. She would close her eyes and imagine herself floating. She thought she was at her most graceful when she was free to move about weightlessly, letting her arms and legs move like a dancer’s as she drifted effortlessly from one side of the stage to the other. The costumes designed to be worn when flying above the stage were flowing and beautiful and lush. She liked the costumes almost as much as the flying part. Almost. Bernadette loved to fly. She’d created and choreographed a Peter Pan number just to have an excuse to dress like a fairy and fly above the audience on a wire, sprinkling glitter dust over the crowd.

But Les Girls closed. And as she got older, the stages got smaller and it was harder to find an opportunity to fly. Few theatres would risk the insurance nightmare of flying and floating performers on wires. Regretfully, Bernadette had to let go of the old thrill, letting it become a memory.

She was sitting with Marion, watching auditions at Lasseter’s, a little bored because the talent had been a bit of a letdown that morning. Then a group of acrobats came onto the stage and she perked up a bit. Tumblers always made her happy, in their skintight outfits that showed all of their muscles. When she saw the harness come drifting down from the rafters, her breath caught in her throat. They had an aerialist. Their performance was fun and different, and seemed to be a bit inspired by Cirque de Soleil. Marion hired them for the Main Stage, which made Bernadette very happy.

At the rehearsal for the show, Bernadette went over to talk to the aerialist, and the conversation drifted to her experiences with les Girls and how much she had enjoyed being in harness and flying in the old days. Marion butted in and before the conversation was over, Bernadette had been talked into recreating one of her old numbers, with the help of the team for this show. It had not taken much arm twisting, she had been thrilled by the chance to strap into a harness and feel that tug as the wire was cranked up once more.

The rehearsals for the show were a tease, a little taste of flight, punctuated and interrupted by technical discussions and planning and changes. It wasn’t until the first performance that she was able to recapture that heady feeling that came with floating above the stage. Clad in a flowing and shimmering red gown, she flew again. It was a trip into the past, the recapturing of a memory. She closed her eyes and reveled in the feeling of weightlessness, of the freedom of flying. It was just as wonderful as she remembered. She had tears of joy streaming down her face when she was lowered once more to the stage.

That run of shows was a highlight of her days at Lasseter’s, something she would hold in her heart for the rest of her life and never take for granted again.

 

 **Love a Man in Uniform**  
When Bernadette had gotten her start on the stage, as Vaudeville was taking its last dying gasps Burlesque was rising to take its place, Les Girls had been a favorite show of the troops that had stopped over in Sydney. Many a sailor on leave took in the Les Girls show. And Bernadette had taken in the show out in the audience from her vantage point on stage.

Soldiers and sailors of all ages came into the theatre. Bernadette (who was still Ralph in those days) had a weakness for military men, or rather, for men in uniform. Any uniform would do. Shiny buttons, sharp creases, badges and insignia it was all part of the allure to young Ralph... er... Bernadette.

Going after the boys was a very, very risky proposition, one that could lead to broken jaws, bloodied noses, cracked ribs or worse, a stay in hospital. Bernadette tamped down her urges to touch and chase and tried to content herself with merely looking. She had the best spot in town to do that, from center stage at Les Girls.

A long time after Les Girls was no more and Bernadette was no longer performing as she once had, thinking of retiring completely, she met a man that changed her mind.

On the trip across the country, doing a favor for her friend Tick, Bernadette met Bob. He was a mechanic that had fixed their bus and travelled with them to make sure that it kept running so that they could get to their destination.

Bob, it turned out, had seen Les Girls in the city. He remembered it fondly, talking about the show he had taken in as a young soldier on leave. When he had found out Bernadette had been a headliner in the Les Girls show, he had been star struck. She had been touched to find she still had a fan, after all these years.

They had stayed on together at Lasseter’s Hotel and Casino, growing closer and more comfortable in a friendship that had bloomed into a relationship.

There was to be a reunion of Bob’s army friends, an anniversary complete with a dinner and party. It was going to be at a restaurant in Alice Springs, so Bob could hardly make excuses not to go, since he was staying at the hotel so close to the restaurant. Fussing slightly, he had agreed to go.

On the evening of the party, he pulled out his old dress uniform and tried it on. His belly stuck out of the jacket a little, and it wouldn’t close all the way so he couldn’t button it, but the sight of the uniform reminded Bernadette of all those shows in the distant past, all the young men she had performed in front of over the years as one of Les Girls. She ignored the scent of mothballs, remembering instead the scents of the theatre as it had been filled with excited young men.

She didn’t see the tight shirt and trousers that rode too low on his waist. She could imagine the man he had been, one of those she had yearned to know more intimately but had feared insulting or enraging with her attentions. Now she had Bob.

Moving to stand before him, Bernadette re-knotted his tie and straightened the uniform cap that was angled a bit to jauntily to be regulation. She turned him towards the mirror and stood behind him, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him. For a few moments, she felt very young again. Bob had given her that.

 

The End


End file.
